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ResponseThomas X. HammesPublished online: 04 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Thomas X. Hammes (2005) Response, Contemporary SecurityPolicy, 26:2, 279-285, DOI: 10.1080/13523260500211256

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Response

THOMAS X. HAMMES

First, I would like to thank those who commented on this essay. The reader

will recognize the names and realize they took time from very busy schedules

to do so. I wrote the article which led to this symposium (and the book) for the

purpose of stimulating discussion. Their feedback clarifies both the strong and

the weak points of my writing.

I felt we needed a discussion on the role of insurgency in the future of war

because, with very little serious discussion, the Pentagon has spent almost 15

years and hundreds of billions of dollars pursuing a purely high-technology

future. This future envisions a single type of enemy – a state using conven-

tional war. Only in the past few months have official Pentagon documents

even discussed the possibility that our enemies may not choose to join us in

that future. One of the primary purposes of the essay is to provide a different

future, a future that renders most of the high-technology equipment the

Pentagon is purchasing obsolete.

I selected the fourth-generation warfare (4GW) model for both the book

and the essay for two reasons. First, unlike many of the models in current

literature, it focuses on modern war. Second, it is a very simple model. The

point of the essay and book is to stimulate discussion among people interested

in national security but not necessarily deeply read in history. The 4GW model

provides a simple framework to illustrate how modern insurgents have

evolved to defeat the very high-technology force the Pentagon proposes.

Some might say the fact that US forces have been tied down by insurgen-

cies for three years should be sufficient proof. 4GW or other discussions are

unnecessary because Iraq and Afghanistan show we need to change our

vision of the future. Unfortunately, those who support conventional warfare

are very resistant to change. Two of the respondents to this paper, both very

thoughtful, well-read and highly respected commentators, essentially wrote

that insurgency is unworthy of serious study or effort. Ferris stated, ‘If the

problem is that Western governments cannot easily win guerrilla wars

abroad, one solution may be: why bother trying?’ (p. 252). Luttwak rec-

ommends ‘leaving terrorists to police forces and staying clear of insurgencies’

(p. 228). This is exactly the line those who seek a high-technology, big war

Contemporary Security Policy, Vol.26, No.2 (August 2005), pp.279–285ISSN 1352-3260 print=1743-8764 onlineDOI: 10.1080=13523260500211256 # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd.

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military would like the US to adopt. Unfortunately, the first concept is based

on the outdated assumption that if we leave the insurgents alone, they will

leave us alone. 9/11 should have put that concept to rest.

The other concept, that police are sufficient to deal with insurgents, may be

true in well-governed parts of the world. Unfortunately, it is in the ungoverned

spaces that insurgencies establish themselves and grow. Ignoring insurgents is

no longer a viable option. Modern society allows insurgents to strike anywhere

in the world if they decide it will help their cause. Iraq and Afghanistan show

that even if a high-technology military takes down a regime, it will be faced

with an insurgency if the people of that nation refuse to accept defeat. The

Defense Science Board Summer Study Transition To and From Hostilities

stated that there is a ‘high likelihood’ the US will find itself dealing with

failed states, terrorists and insurgencies.1 In short, like it or not, the US had

better be prepared to deal with insurgents.

Unlike Bill Lind, I do not see 4GW as a cultural struggle.2 That is much

too narrow a lens through which to understand these fights. In fact, that

approach distorts the history and greatly reduces the possibilities for success-

fully dealing with a 4GW enemy. If you have unalterable cultural conflicts, it

is impossible to work toward a functioning, mutually acceptable government

in the area of the conflict.

In his reply, Wirtz hit on a critical reason why we have to discuss how war

has changed. Many military officers are unwilling ‘to confront the fact that war

is ultimately a political contest’ (p. 222). One of the central arguments of 4GW

is that insurgents have learned to use political power to neutralize military

power. Prowess on the battlefield does not necessarily translate to desired pol-

itical end states. In the first three generations of modern war, if military per-

sonnel succeeded in their primarily military functions, there was a high

probability the war would turn out well. 4GW changes that. As Wirtz con-

cluded, ‘the problem with 4GW warriors is not that they are better soldiers

than today’s military professionals are; it is that they are better politicians’

(p. 226). We have to learn how to tie our military actions to the political

goals of the fight.

Several of the replies expressed concern that I see the evolution of war as

a linear progression with each generation superseding the previous. In fact,

a quick survey of modern conflict shows that all generations of modern war

and even pre-modern tribal war continue to take place today. This is in

keeping with how war has evolved. While a newer generation is capable of

defeating an earlier generation of war, that does not mean nations and even

groups won’t continue to use earlier generations. They simply may not be

organizationally, socially or intellectually ready for a newer generation and

thus unable to use it. One of my key arguments is the form of warfare a

society uses is based on its political, economic, social and technical status.

280 CONTEMPORARY SECURITY POLICY

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Clearly the tribal groups in West Africa cannot employ even first-generation

state war against each other; they lack the prerequisite political and social

organization. In the same way, Saddam’s Iraq could not employ maneouvre-

based 3GW because the entire concept is based on trust between leader

and led.

Other replies were concerned that I see 4GW as post-Clausewitzean war.

While some 4GW writers have stated that interstate war is waning, I have

never seen any who say that it eliminates the basic trinity of hostile forces

trying to achieve a political goal in an arena filled with friction, fog and

chance. Mao himself acknowledged Clausewitz’s insights in his essay ‘On

Guerrilla War’.3 Vividly driving the point home, the conflicts in Iraq and

Afghanistan show that no matter how rich, well-equipped or high-tech a

force, it still faces uncertainty and friction in war. This fact is one of the

main weaknesses of the Pentagon’s Joint Vision 2020 and high-technology

gurus. They see technology as giving US and allied forces ‘information dom-

inance’. Many in the Pentagon continue to push such a concept despite our

obvious information deficits in Iraq, Afghanistan and the badly misnamed

Global War on Terror.

By far the most consistent complaint about my presentation of 4GW was

the identification of Mao as the father of this form of war. I am fully aware that

guerrilla warfare dates back much further. J.F.C. Fuller’s The Generalship of

Alexander the Great (1958) provides an excellent account of the problems

Afghan guerrillas caused in the fourth century BC. Robert B. Asprey’s book

War in the Shadows: the Guerrilla in History (1975) shows how guerrilla

warfare remained an important approach to warfare throughout the subsequent

eras. In the past, however, its practitioners fell back on guerrilla war due to the

failure of their conventional forces – not as a preferred war-winning effort.

For the most part, these guerrillas fought in support of a national army that

had been driven back or an international army coming to their aid. The excep-

tions are those tribal and colonial wars such as the Indian Wars in the US west.

These people fought as primitives, with no clear idea of how to win against a

much more powerful opponent. Although some tribes allied themselves with

outside powers, often to defeat a tribal enemy, they did not choose insurgency

as a political approach to war. Even if they had, political and social conditions

of the time made it impossible for such a campaign to win.

History is full of examples of guerrillas fighting a wide variety of enemies

under a wide variety of conditions. Therefore, asking why I give Mao credit

for being the father of 4GW is a legitimate question. I do so simply because

he was the first to write a clear, concise instruction manual that was widely

distributed and followed, virtually as a recipe in some cases. Carlos Marigella

and Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara also wrote guerrilla manuals, but their ideas died

with the people who tried to execute them.

4GW: A REJOINDER 281

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Sun Tzu wrote about insurgency and Clausewitz discussed it. Both clearly

influenced Mao. But Mao was the first to identify insurgency not just as an

auxiliary form of war to be used when conventional forces have been defeated

or to support an advancing allied army, but as a war-winning approach in and

of itself. Mao did not see guerrilla warfare as a war winner but rather as one

phase of his three-phase theory of insurgent warfare. From the beginning,

Mao wrote that People’s War would include elements of conventional war,

guerrilla operations and terror.

Most important, Mao is the first to state unequivocally that ‘political

mobilization is the most fundamental condition for winning the war’.4

While others had highlighted the importance of political motivation to guer-

rillas, Mao not only stated its primary importance but also organized both

his theory of war and his forces around that idea.

Several authors contest the idea that Mao and Ho won with insurgents.

They noted that their wars ended with the defeat of the government forces

by the insurgent’s regular forces. To which Mao and Ho would have

replied, ‘Of course!’. Each stated unequivocally that he would use convention-

al forces in the final phase of his insurgency.

Despite the fact each knew his war would end with conventional fights,

each gave greater weight to and focused more on political than military

strength. Victory by insurgents is not inevitable. In fact, most insurgents,

even liberation movements, failed because they had not heeded Mao’s

admonition that political strength was the most important factor. They

failed to build a solid political base and thus were easily eliminated by the

government security forces.

The sequence of insurgencies I selected was not meant to be representative

of the numerous insurgencies fought between Mao and today. Rather I

selected them to illustrate the significant changes each introduced to Mao’s

theory. Each adapted insurgency to take advantage of the unique political,

economic, social and technical conditions they faced. As a result, insurgencies

have evolved from Mao’s monolithic, hierarchical insurgency to the diverse,

networked insurgencies of today. Each step in this evolution was the result of

practical men solving practical problems in order to insure their insurgency

won. And, as has been true throughout modern war, the most successful adap-

tations were those that took advantage of changes in society.

It is essential that we understand the changes in insurgency if we are to

deal with them. The most important is the fact that we no longer face mono-

lithic organizations that respond to a single leader and are driven by a single

concept. Instead, we face coalitions of the willing. In Afghanistan, Chechnya,

Iraq and Palestine, there was/is no single unifying political idea. Rather the

varied groups that cooperated to fight agreed on only one thing – the

foreign power had to go. All insurgent groups knew that when that goal was

282 CONTEMPORARY SECURITY POLICY

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achieved they would then have to fight among themselves to determine which

of their political visions would rule. Far from being monolithic, today’s insur-

gencies are coalitions of opportunistic groups banded together for the single

purpose of ejecting the outsider and then defeating the government. They

know they lack the unity to establish an effective government and anticipate

continued fighting even after the government is defeated.

The insurgent coalition of the willing in Iraq shows all the traits of these

earlier coalition insurgencies. The volatile mix of former Ba’athists, Sadr’s

Shia militia, violent Sunni fundamentalists, foreign jihadists, criminal

gangs, revenge seekers and unemployed, bored teens is what Mao’s mono-

lithic insurgency has evolved into. As with prior 4GW combatants, their

lack of a unified strategy is both a strength and a weakness. It is a strength

because it does not allow the government to develop a single counterstrategy.

But it is a weakness because it deprives the rebels of a unifying idea – they

have only the negative goal of driving out the outsider.

A second major trend has been the shift from a military endgame to a

political endgame. While Mao and Ho stated the war would end with a large

conventional fight where the insurgents destroyed the government, current

insurgencies do not seek a military victory. Starting with the Sandinistas,

who stated they had no military plan to seize the country, this trend was mag-

nified during Intifada I (1987–91) when the Palestinian leadership actually

disarmed the protesters in the street, preferring the strategic advantages of

pure victims to the ambiguity of losing combatants. It is also clear the Iraqi

and Afghan insurgents do not see themselves as capable of defeating the

US and its allies militarily. They do not currently seem to plan for a classic

Maoist Phase III. Rather they intend to use long-term resistance to wear

down American will. They believe that the withdrawal of US support from

their governments is the essential condition that will lead to their victory.

With this goal in mind, the priority of insurgent targeting in Iraq is not to

destroy significant US forces. Rather their highest priority is to attack the will

of the US and Iraqi populations. A primary technique is to ensure the attacks

are covered both in Western and Arab media. This is a targeted media cam-

paign with one set of videos for the Arab media and another for Western

media. While the use of the media is not new, modern communications tech-

nology vastly increases the velocity and impact of its use.

Yet another trend is the truly transnational character of these conflicts.

While one commentator stated World War I and World War II were trans-

national wars, I think they were actually international wars. Those wars were

fought primarily by states operating, for the most part, under international

law with the intention of militarily defeating their enemies. In contrast, the

most ethereal transnational organizations have no fixed capital, no formal

government, no recognized boundaries and report to no authority. They

4GW: A REJOINDER 283

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represent a very different enemy than a state. It requires distinctly different

thought processes to deal with such enemies. Because they do not have to

defend any particular geographic location, simple military defeat is largely

ineffective. One must destroy their will to resist.

Each of these new characteristics of insurgency – coalitions, lack of a

military campaign plan, targeting enemy decision-makers directly through a

variety of networks and their transnational character – capitalize on the

way society has evolved since Mao. The increased density of communications,

particularly the Internet, has allowed very diverse coalitions to work together

to defeat an outside power. The focus on political rather than military goals is

only possible because there are so many paths available to convince enemy

decision-makers they cannot achieve their strategic goals. In Mao’s time,

the primary path was the grinding away of the security forces and the slow

increase in the size of the territory the insurgents held. Today, insurgents do

not need to hold major geographic areas in order to be effective. Instead,

through media, the markets, international associations and a worldwide

network of sympathizers, the insurgent can drive his message home through

a wide variety of paths.

Yet another concern expressed in the comments is the idea that I want to

completely revamp Western armed forces to fight 4GW enemies. Unfortu-

nately, the essay was not long enough to provide the range of recommen-

dations of the book. In fact, I see the US being required to maintain the

ability to fight all generations of war. To do that, we first must accomplish

what General Anthony Zinni refers to as the ‘transformation between the

ears’. No matter what force structure we have, we cannot use it correctly if

we do not understand the particular conflict we are in.

Once we transform our thinking, the most important step is to develop true

interagency capabilities to deal with all generations of war. This will require

legislative action, extensive changes in personnel selection, promotion and

training policies and at least a decade to fully implement.

In the shorter term, well-balanced medium-weight military forces such as a

US Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) will be the best approach to deal with

the full spectrum of warfare. The MEF is a flexible tool kit, adaptable to a

wide spectrum of contingencies. It has been used to build everything from

the mechanized force backed by hundreds of strike aircraft that entered Iraq

in 2003 to the manpower-heavy force that 12 years ago secured Somalia until

it was turned over to the UN. In short, we should not build forces to fight a

specific high-tech enemy or a specific type of war but to function well across

the spectrum of conflict. It must be flexibly manned, trained and equipped to

deal with the far more unpredictable tasks at hand today.

To modify an old Marine Corps slogan ‘Nobody wants to know how to

fight insurgents, but someone has to know how’. The fact of the matter is

284 CONTEMPORARY SECURITY POLICY

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those who wish to fight the US have turned to 4GW – because it works. As

Thornton stated, there is a danger in treating it as war because it will be left

to the military. That is only true if you do not recognize the changes 4GW

has brought to war. It was the same in WWI when both sides sent first-gener-

ation warfare massed formations against the firepower of second-generation

warfare armies. They did not recognize the changes in war and paid a

heavy price.

While not addressed in this short article, it is clear that states are also

capable of using 4GW techniques to neutralize an opponent’s combat power.

Chinese authors have written that China should use diplomatic, economic,

financial, cyber, media/information and network warfare to neutralize the

West’s advantages in the military/technical domain.5 China’s actions in politi-

cal, economic, social and military fields throughout Asia, the Middle East and

Africa indicate it is forming alliances to reduce Western power and influence

while assuring their access to raw materials, particularly energy. The US

must think beyond conventional war with China and analyse how it, and

other states, will use 4GW to neutralize our technical strengths.

How warfare is conducted has changed. Today, we have to understand that

warfare is a multi-disciplined endeavour requiring a truly interagency effort.

The US and its allies must recognize that fact. 4GW, whether used by insur-

gents or another state, must be dealt with by a true interagency team, combin-

ing military and civilian capabilities to defeat adversaries. A purely military

response is doomed to fail.

N O T E S

1. Transition to and from Hostilities, Defense Science Board Summer Study (Washington, DC:Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Dec.2004).

2. Lind’s views can be found in his ‘On War’ commentaries, which can be accessed via the‘Defense and the National Interest’ pages devoted to 4GW: at ,www.d-n-i.net/second_level/fourth_generation_warfare.htm..

3. Mao Tse-tung, On Guerrilla Warfare, trans. by S.B. Griffith, II (Baltimore, MD: The National& Aviation Publishing Company of America, n.d.), p.75.

4. Mao Tse-tung, On Protracted War (Peking: People’s Publishing House, 1954), p.137.5. L. Qiao and X. Wang, Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America

(West Palm Beach, FL: NewsMax Media, 2002).

4GW: A REJOINDER 285

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